But, wherever the warrior's bones were laid, they were guarded by secrecy, by the dreaded _tapu_, and by the jealous zeal of his people.

Even now no Maori tribe will sell such spots, and the greedy or inquisitive _Pakeha_ who profanely explores or meddles with them does so at no small risk.
Far different was the fate of those unlucky leaders who fell in battle, or were captured and slaughtered and devoured thereafter.
Their heads stuck upon the posts of the victor's _pa_ were targets for ribaldry, or, in later days, might be sold to the _Pakeha_ and carried away to be stared at as oddities.

Their bones might be used for flutes and fishing-hooks, for no fisherman was so lucky as he whose hook was thus made; their souls were doomed to successive stages of deepening darkness below, and at length, after reaching the lowest gulf, passed as earth-worms to annihilation.
[Illustration].